You're reading: Medvedev accuses West of starting ‘new Cold War’

The world has "slipped into a new Cold War," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a panel discussion during the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 13.

“Almost every day we are referred to as the most terrible menace to NATO or to Europe, or to America and other countries in particular,” Medvedev said. “They shoot scary movies in which Russians start a nuclear war. Sometimes I think whether we live in the year of 2016 or 1962.”

Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president in 2008-2012, said that the economic sanctions that the Western countries imposed on Russia are hurting both sides.

“The relations between the European Union and Russia are ruined. This road leads nowhere,” Medvedev said. “Do not doubt – it’s going to be bad for everyone.”

Referring to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Medvedev told the gathering that Russia is worrying about the implementation of Minsk II agreements by Kyiv and called the situation there a “civil war.”

In his turn, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko responded to Medvedev in his own speech at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 13.

Poroshenko said that the security of Europe and the world are at stake in the war in Ukrainian eastern region that Russia started in 2014. He called Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine.

He also responded to Medvedev’s claim that Ukraine is going through a civil war.

“This is not a civil war in Ukraine, this is your aggression. This is your soldiers, who have entered my country,” Poroshenko said. “Russian ammunition and weapons are sent to Ukraine every day.”

He cited the numerous evidence of the Russian military presence in Ukraine, including the ID cards of the Russian soldiers taken captive and satellite pictures that show Russian military vehicles entering Ukraine.

As Poroshenko and Medvedev were delivering their speeches, the Normandy Four – the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France – held a closed meeting in Munich.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said later that at the meeting, he showed his Russian counterpart, Serhiy Lavrov, the photo evidence of Russian weapons being brought into eastern Ukraine.

“Mr. Lavrov didn’t react or comment,” Klimkin told journalists after the meeting. “We see how much ammunition currently cross into the country and understand that this ammunition can lay down the foundations of future offensive operation.”

At the meeting, the usual questions were raised, including the possibility of holding a local election in the Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russian-separatist forces. One new issue that was raised, according to Klimkin, was the authorities’ repression of Crimean Tatars.

The recent reports from Crimea, the Ukrainian region annexed by Russia in 2014, indicated the worsening of the authorities’ treatment of Crimean Tatars, the minority that is the peninsula’s native population.

The next Normandy Four meeting will take place in Paris in early March.

Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected].